Over the past twenty-five years, the Kaliningrad exclave has been a thorn in NATO’s side. A Russian military outpost wedged between Lithuania and Poland, it is a critical element of Russian military planning, especially when it comes to anti-access and area denial (A2/AD) systems over the Baltic Sea and Moscow’s ability to project power in the Nordic and Baltic regions.

Since Russia’s March 2014 annexation of Crimea and subsequent escalation of the war in Ukraine, Moscow has been pouring troops and weapons into Kaliningrad, most recently nuclear-capable Iskander missiles and S-400 surface-to-air batteries. Kaliningrad’s primary rail link to the Russian mainland runs through Lithuania, raising fears in Vilnius that Russia may leverage this vulnerability to create a confrontation at will.

The range of weapons deployed in Kaliningrad—the long-range systems there could now reach into the core of NATO—coupled with massive Russian snap exercises in the Baltics and frequent violations of the airspace and territorial waters of NATO and neutral Sweden and Finland has fed an escalatory spiral. Today, the risk is real and growing that a miscalculation on either side may trigger a crisis or spin out of control into a military conflict between NATO and Russia.

At its July 2016 summit in Warsaw, NATO vowed to respond to Russia’s military buildup along the alliance’s northeastern flank with planned deployments of four multinational battalions in the Baltics and Poland; a new regime of persistent military exercises; and the rotational deployment of a U.S. brigade to Europe, with its headquarters in Poland.

An arms race is on the way in the Baltics, one that is centered on Kaliningrad and plays out against the backdrop of a potentially devastating nuclear escalation. The Russians continue to up the ante by putting additional hardware into Kaliningrad and conducting more exercises. Such moves send a political message and test NATO’s response time. Meanwhile, NATO allies along the flank are frantically looking for ways to increase deterrence. To counter the increased Russian militarization of Kaliningrad, the Baltic states have accelerated their military modernization programs, including by acquiring antitank missiles. Reflecting a deepening concern about Russian deployments in Kaliningrad and along NATO’s Eastern flank, the U.S. government has agreed to consider supplying Poland with the JASSM-ER missile, a standoff weapon that can be launched from the F-16 fighter aircraft and has a range of up to 1,000 kilometers (621 miles).

There can be no resolution of the deepening polarization and strategic asymmetries in the Baltic region without the status of Kaliningrad being addressed head-on. Simply put, now is the time for the West to engage frankly and directly with Russia on the future status of the exclave.

At this point in NATO’s tense relations with Russia, any talk about demilitarizing Kaliningrad is a pipe dream. But the alliance and Russia urgently need a set of negotiated rules on notification, exercises, and operations in the Baltic Sea and along the littoral. The current escalatory pattern has acquired a disturbing rhythm of its own, with a tit-for-tat series of moves becoming the norm: each side claims to be simply responding to the actions of the other. Considering how narrow the risk margins have become over the past year in particular, this pattern is no longer acceptable.

There is another dimension to the Kaliningrad question that needs to be put squarely on the table: the situation in Ukraine cannot be settled unless NATO addresses the larger issue of military balance along its Eastern flank. Here, a resolution to Kaliningrad (and, increasingly, the growing militarization of Crimea) is the prerequisite for any comprehensive solution to the war in Ukraine. This is an ever more urgent issue, as the war in Ukraine’s eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk is anything but a frozen conflict.

Since the 2016 U.S. presidential election, there has been a lot of speculation about what the priorities of Donald Trump’s administration should be come January. But considering the rapidly shifting balance in the Baltics and the potentially devastating implications of a miscalculation, the West may not have the luxury of time to engage in a long-term strategic reflection. The situation in the Baltics should be at the top of the U.S. foreign and security policy agenda—especially given the level of disarray in the EU following Britain’s vote to leave the bloc and NATO’s fragmentation over defense spending.

As in the Cold War years, the West needs to look for points where its interests correspond with Russia’s, and finding a path to de-escalation in the Baltics is one of the items on which Western and Russian interests coalesce. It is premature to talk about a larger U.S.-Russian strategy, and the West should not waste its time and energy on another reset that would allegedly solve it all. Rather, engagement on the concrete matter of the escalatory spiral in Kaliningrad and the Baltics, where both sides are deeply invested, should be a starting point for a frank discussion with Russia. The aim should be to find a solution to a risk level that has become unacceptably high.

Andrew A. Michta is the dean of the College of International and Security Studies at the George C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies. Views expressed here are his own.

l almost totally disagree. With all the anti-Russia rhetoric over the last few years, the Russians appear improving their defense capabilities on the Kaliningrad 'island'. Busy in Syria, l do not think Russia is being 'aggressive'. Russia was not during NATO Expansion.

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An European

December 09, 20165:28 am

Yes. An eventual military unbalance in Kallninigrad and Crimea is a crucial security issue. But no less important is resolving of Donbas part of the current conflict.
However, Minsk2 was signed in the hurry but according to me it is containing a major bug. It is saying about elections in ''Particular Districts of Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts''.
l think this approach does not follow the objective of free democratic elections. It is really not this what the European set of values mean. Democratic elections in Donbas mean full scale elections in the whole Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts and NOT only elections in particular districts of these 2 Oblasts. The Minsk2 idea of elections in ''Pa1ticular districts of Luhansk and Donetsk Oblasts” follows and gives up the division of the 2 administrative Ukrainian oblasts, a division created by unrestricted violence of war. It suggests that candidates would be nominated and voted only in these particular districts of Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts. Meanwhile the acceptance of the front line and division as results of war is not the objective of democratic states. So the Minsk2 should be corrected/amended with the statement that the free election will cover the whole Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts. That means that the candidatures will be nominated and
voted in the whole 2 oblasts. Such amendmend will not accept an artificial partition of 2 oblasts and division of the societies. Next, the amendment will force the imagination of the involved societies toward attitudes of acting in the frame of Ukrainian constitution and political codex.

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Mikhail Barabanov

December 09, 201612:20 pm

1. Iskander missiles are not permanently deployed in Kaliningrad, and were moved there temporarily during exercise. And not for the first time. And let me remind you that before the United States likewise temporarily deployed HIMARS systems with ATACMS missiles in Estonia
2. There is no evidence to equip Iskander system with nuclear warheads, especially in Kaliningrad, .
3. The deployment of two battalions of S-400 SAM systems did not increase, but rather reduced the number of SAM systems in the Kaliningrad region, i.e. were reduced three battalions of S-200V and one battalion of S-300V SAM systems. SAM group in Kaliningrad has not changed for 20 years, and only quantitatively reduced.
4. There was no significant strengthening of the military force in Kaliningrad, on the contrary, the force has been drastically reduced in 2010-2011, when 800 tanks were withdrawn from Kaliningrad and left only 40 tanks
5. Land forces in Kaliningrad one of the most outdated in Russian Army and did not receive any new or modernized tank, no new armored personnel carriers or missile systems
6. The aviation group in Kaliningrad have old non-upgraded Su-27 and Su-24M airccraft, from the last 10 years has been significantly reduced, there is also no new attack helicopters
7. Thus, the author completely incompetent in the matter of Russian military presence in Kaliningrad, and is engaged in direct and frank fake thesis about "Russian military threat"

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Jacob Kipp

December 10, 20168:14 am

Kaliningrad has not been a thorn in NATO's side for 25 years. NATO did not have much concern about Kaliningrad until Poland joined the Alliance in 1999. Prior to that Kaliningrad was an area of German investment and tourism. The real security problem came with NATO expansion into the Baltic states in 2004 and even then Kaliningrad did not figure greatly in NATO strategy, which was focused on ont-of-area operations, especially Afghanistan. Yes, the crisis has become accute since the Euromaidan revolutuion and Russia's annexation of Crimea. But the real problem is not Kaliningrad. It is that a war with Russia over the Baltic states will involve strikes deep into Russian territory including St. Petersburg and will quite probable lead to nuclear preemption by the Russians with a very grave risk of strategic, vertical escalation. Until NATO decides to address that particular strategic context of a probable Russian-NATO war, no military planning will make any sense.

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Rubaiyat

December 10, 20162:25 pm

Seriously? An agreement on rules of non-engagement? How much weight would the Russians place on that, when push comes to shove? No, the answer is for ALL of Europe, but particularly the perimeter countries in the Baltics, Scandinavia and Poland, to arm themselves. There will soon be a gun fight. They don't want to walk into it with a knife.

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Kenny

December 11, 20167:46 am

Michta is right about the importance of this issue, but East Prussia (to use its historical name) was once German territory and no solution or accommodation can be reached without determined engagement by Germany. Is Germany capable of a renewed Ostpolitik? That's the crucial question here, which one hopes will be addressed and answered in next year's federal election.

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HGAFFNEY

December 15, 20162:15 pm

Wildly exaggerated. Think of it from the Russian side: nothing is more vulnerable than their beautiful little exclave on the Baltic. It has no real economy other than mining and selling amber. To use it as an outpost to start some war against Eastern Europe would be crazy. They have hardly any ships there (take a look at Google Maps) and there are not very many missiles that Iskander could fire. The Russian people there much prefer their contacts with the rest of Europe (I've been there and heard them). All this noise by the Russians on the Baltics is only to distract the NATO countries from Ukraine. It's working.

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